*Disclaimer* It is highly recommended that the reader reads Part 1 (below) before reading Part 2. Also, after comments on readers being exhausted by just reading about what happened, the author takes no responsibility for any side effects reading this blog may incur. (This applies to Parts 1-3.) :)

Saturday… Saturday started out slowly. I had a bit of time to sleep in (thankfully) before the chaos of the day began. It’s one thing for life to be chaotic and for you to be able to express that to someone, but it’s a whole other thing when you have to keep this chaos under wraps, especially from a spouse.

Add to that the fact that I am a HORRIBLE liar. I can’t even play a good joke on people because I bust, I start laughing or whatever. I never could lie, even as a kid. Of course I still tried, but I always got caught, and my parents had this policy of “if you tell us about something you did before we find out, your punishment will be much less severe.” Since I am a logical person and hate being punished, I would just tell them what I did. Therefore, I never developed the are of lying. So, when it comes to surprises, it’s REALLY hard for me to pull off because it required so many secrets.

I started planning a surprise birthday party for Chris a week ago. I admit I didn’t really think it through, though, which is rare for me. I’m a very calculated person, so when I started spontaneously inviting people to a party for Chris, I then decided to make it a surprise. I knew that getting older was not an easy thing for Chris (or for any of us), so I thought turning 35 might be a tough one. I also knew that sometimes it’s hard to see if you’re making any effect on people. Living as a missionary, you always wonder if people are interested in you just because you’re foreign or if they actually care about you. So I thought it would be fun to try to pull people from all the different circles that Chris has participated in. So I started the list… YWAM people from the different bases, the band, other youth in Talsi, and other random people that he knows. I just kept inviting. I honestly didn’t think there would be that many people. Then the responses started coming in… Thankfully, I had contacted Kaspars in the beginning of this whole thing to see if he could help me by getting Chris out of the house in the afternoon and bringing him back at a specific time. Kaspars was game, and, as Chris declared later, is an incredible liar! (haha) (THANK YOU KASPARS!)

So Saturday I started cleaning. Chris was still home, but since I had a cover story (Kaspars and his wife Evelyn were “coming to dinner” that night), he didn’t think much about it. In the afternoon Chris had band practice and then I started my work in earnest. I started some baking and really cleaning. I had an idea of how many people may come, but you’re never really sure about something like this. Practice ended and Chris brought Ieva over “to hang out with me” while he went on an outing with Kaspars. Once Kaspars finally got here and we got Chris out of the house (at 4:30p), stuff really picked up. I then left Ieva to keep baking and to vacuum the house while I ran to the store and picked up Andis. We got back to the house at 5:30p. I put Andis in charge of decorations and jumped in the shower while Ieva drove back to town (driving by herself for the first time!!) to pick up our early out-of-town guests. They were back by 6:15p. I was frantically making food and others started to arrive at 6:30p. I was in the kitchen, and Andis was on door duty, so I wasn’t even sure how many people were coming, or who. I just kept cooking and directing. People, food, gifts (even though we said no gifts) and more people kept arriving. Before I knew it I got word that the guys were driving into our village, so we shoved everyone into our living room, shut the door and turned out the lights. Then Andis and I realized there were still had coats and shoes in the foyer! Oh no! Throw them in the bedroom! (Have you seen a bedroom where you throw 30 some coats and pairs of shoes?) Shut the door! And we began to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Where the heck were they? I looked out the kitchen window and finally saw them pulling into the parking lot. Ok, finally.

Another 5 minutes.

Cell phone call… it’s Kaspars. “Ok, we’re coming up now.” I’m thinking “It’s about time!” but I say “Yeah, ok, we’re ready!” It’s around 7:30p by now.

We only live on the 3rd floor, but it was another 3-4 minutes (which is an eternity when you’re doing something like this) before they came in. Of course Chris had no idea, so he’s just taking his time. He’s also dirty cause they had gone 4-wheeling, which is a big deal but kinda expensive to do here. He’s telling me all about it and I’m like, “Ok, well, why don’t you hang up your coat and come here, I have something to show you in the living room.” He says, “But my shoes are dirty.” (Dang European customs.) I say, “It’s ok, I just really wanna show you what I did.” I was so nervous. I had no idea how he would respond or react. Of course Kaspars is waiting too, so finally we go over to the living room door, I open it and turn on the lights and about 30 people who are crammed into my living room scream “SURPRISE!” and start singing Happy Birthday to him. He was very overwhelmed and I even saw tears in his eyes before he pulled his baseball cap down to cover them.

As he looked around at who was here, his first words were something like “The fact that you got all of these specific people in one place is amazing.” That’s what I wanted.

He did finally get his muddy shoes off and then a receiving line of sorts formed where each person could hug him and wish him a happy birthday and give him flowers or whatever. It was so sweet.

For the next 5 hours people from all the different realms of our lives mingled and talked and ate and ate and ate. The first hour or two I don’t think I stopped as I was still trying to fix more food and serve it. I did learn a valuable lesson by the time the cake went out and that being that I should always snag some for me before it hits the table. Thankfully that Honey cake was AMAZING, and I did get a piece of that. :)

Around 9:30 or so people slowly started leaving. (Was it my imagination or was it the older people first?) Once it got down to us and about 10 youth (around 11pm), some spontaneous worship broke out in the office. I listened as I started to clean up (I had no choice knowing how busy Sunday would be… but you’ll read that in Part 3) and my heart was so blessed. Here we were, celebrating Chris 35th birthday… I’m not too far behind his age either, and we have a room full of 16-20 year-olds hanging out in our house and worshiping God. It was awesome. I did join them later on and was so blessed.

At midnight Peteris’ mom came and picked up him and his sister, Marta, as well as Kristaps and Jogita. I got ready to take Ieva home and Madara was staying with her that night. Chris got our 3 house guests (Kristofers, Daiga & Keisii) installed in our guest room and in the living room.

It was awhile before we all quieted down and relaxed enough to go to sleep. For me it was that euphoria you experience between adrenaline and relaxation. I was SO glad and even surprised I had pulled it off. I had feared no one would come, but I was gladly mistaken. But I hadn’t realized how stressful keeping this from Chris had been. All of the sms/text messages, other message, skype chats that started with the other person saying “Lydia, is that you or Chris?” and phone calls that began with “Are you alone? Can you talk?”… it had become very tiring, and it hit me hard that night. I was just so overjoyed that I could do this for Chris, and so exhausted at the same time. I had so many nice comments about how much people enjoyed the evening. Surprise parties are not common here, so this was really a new experience for all the Latvians that were here (which was everyone except me & Chris and 4 others). I was also blessed when I was told that I had a real gift for hospitality. I love that.

In the end I counted it all up and we had 34 people in my 650 sq ft apartment. It was so much fun, though, and I can’t wait to do something like it again. :)

Just before going to bed, I got everything ready to make some strong coffee the next morning. The last thoughts on my mind, as I fell asleep at 3am, was that my alarm was going off in 3 1/2 hours… and then Part 3 of the longest weekend ever, would begin.

Stay tuned. :) Part 3 is coming soon.